We Minnesotans have a penchant for claiming virtually anyone who spent a very short while here as our very own. Not only do we embrace those who have skedaddled and never looked back, a la Bob Dylan and Peter Graves, but we even build staues to folks who merely played a TV character based here.

By this or really any criteria, Al Brounstein was one of us, even if he was born in a place called Runnymeade, Saskatchewan in 1920. Brounstein grew up in Minnesota and graduated from Sky-U-Ma. Only then did he visit L.A. one February and decide that that was the place for him. (Of course, in February anyplace else is the place for most of us.)

He made a buttload of money in the pharmaceutical biz, and in 1967 Brounstein purchased some forest land on Napa's Diamond Mountain. He started clearing the woods and planting vines, and his 1978 Diamond Creek Lake Vineyard cab became the first California wine to sell for $100.

Brounstein died in 2006 but received quirte the posthumous honor on Friday, as a member of the third class of inductees into the Vintners Hall of Fame. Joining him are icon/iconoclast Randall Grahm (whom I interviewed recently and will be writing about soon), grower Andy Beckstoffer, pioneering winemaker Zelma Long and author Leon Adams.

Belated though it might be, this is a well-deserved honor for a product of the prairie.